public provision of these services and/or inessential input or output subsidies. Subsidies to Central Public Enterprises are estimated separately as the excess of imputed return on the equity held and loans given by the central government to these enterprises, over actual receipts in the form of dividends and interests. Subsidy in this manner is calculated for each enterprise. They are aggregated according to cognate groups. Each cognate group has some enterprises that receive a subsidy and some surplus units. Explicit subsidies of the Centre The most important explicit subsidies administered through the Central Government budget are food and fertiliser subsidies, and until recently, export subsidies. These subsidies account for about 30% of the total central subsidies in a year and have grown at a rate of approx 10% per annum over the period 1971–72 to 1996–97. The relative importance of different explicit subsidies has changed over the years. E.g., food subsidies accounted for about 70% of total Central explicit subsidies in 1974–75. Since then, its relative share fell steadily reaching its lowest of 20.15% in 1990–91. Thence onwards, it has risen steadily reaching a figure of 40% in 1995–96.Export subsidies have been on the decline except for the spurt in the late 1980s, whereas the relative share of the food subsidies has been rising although in a cyclical pattern. As a proportion of GDP, explicit Central govt subsidies were just about 0.305 in 1971–72. they continued to increase steadily reaching a peak of 2.38% in 1989–90. after this during the reform years, the explicit subsidies as a proportion of GDP have continued to decline. Public Policy In the last quarter of the 20th century, Indian governments began procuring condoms on large scale to facilitate national population control schemes by reselling them at subsidised prices. Recent trends Expenditure on major subsidies has increased in nominal terms from Rs. 95.81 billion in 1990–91 to Rs. 40, 4.16 billion in 2002–03. It was budgeted to increase by 20.3 percent to Rs. 48, 6.36 billion in 2003–04. Expenditure on major subsidies as per cent of revenue expenditure after declining from 13.0 per cent in 1990–91 to 8.7 per cent in 1995-96 started rising to reach a level of 9.6 per cent in 1998–99. In 2002–03, expenditure on major subsidises increased to 11.9 per cent from 10.0 per cent in 2001–02. With the dismantling of the administered price mechanism for petroleum products from 1 April